Nosferatu Beat Sheet
Beat Sheets are ways to gain extra beats (experience) to spend on your character, by delving further into the character's nuances and by giving storytelling staff more handles to interact with your character. Whenever a question asks you about someone from your past, you have the option of describing the relevant details and the interaction, but leaving them unnamed. This invites staff to match up the shadows in your past with the shadows in other PCs', giving another dimension of interaction. This Beat Sheet is for Nosferatu only. Non-Nosferatu characters may get up to five Beats from this sheet if there are questions that reasonably apply to them and have not been answered elsewhere. Nosferatu Beat Sheet (Twenty Beats) 'The Kiss '(One Beat) The Kiss is an amazing, euphoric sensation - for both parties. For the vampire, hunger is a constant companion, a powerful, painful thirst that throbs and twists in the gut. Every gulp of the vessel's hot blood further suppresses that painful craving and adds to the already considerable pleasure that the vampire experiences from taste alone. Feeding is always orgasmically good, and while you're drinking you feel alive. In the afterglow your body hums, feeling full where before you were hollow. The Kiss is love and lust for both parties. It's the sex you know you shouldn't have, but will come back for. That said, the details are different for each vampire. A Nosferatu's Kiss tends to feel dangerous, exhilaration and adrenalin, flirting with death and riding the rush of endorphins. It might feel like a rollercoaster, the building anticipation released with the rush of heart-pounding blood. It might feel like skydiving, an endless freefall, the weight of your Curse lifted for a few glorious moments. How does your Kiss feel for your vessel? How does it feel for you? 'The Curse '(Three Beats) The Lonely Curse makes Nosferatu in some way monstrous. For some it's a purely physical deformity: a mouth of shark teeth, empty eye-sockets that still yet see, skin that sloughs off and reveals the raw muscle and yellow pockets of fat underneath. For some it's more subtle: a miasma of cloying dust, a stench. For others it's stranger still: an animate shadow that moves of its own accord and does not seem to match the Haunt that casts it, maggots manifesting in any place he lingers, a mouth that does not move in synch to her voice. How does your Curse manifest? (Two Beats) How does your Curse influence your behavior? What strategies, if any, do you use to mitigate its effects? (One Beat) 'The Bloodsong '(One Beat) Vitae is always molten ecstacy. It burns the lips and scorches the throat, it's sweet and savory at the same time, it's the best thing you've ever tasted. That said, every vampire's blood tastes slightly different (much like every vintage of wine tastes slightly different) - and they're all the best thing you've ever tasted. Perhaps more importantly, the Blood is alive. A vampire can always feel it, whether it sluggishly collects in a soggy morass deep in the dead gut or whether it clings to the bones and burns like napalm. Again, there are commonalities between clans, though there's also a significantly greater scope for variation. For Nosferatu the Blood is a monster. It might feel like worms crawling around in the body or termites gently chewing through wood - a tickling mass, a crawling chaos, a paroxysm within. It might be a symphony of discord playing in hollow bones, or a carpet of roaches living beneath the skin that's felt but never seen. It might be an icy sensation like an injection of hoary saline, or the persistent internal feel of a warm hand touching a wind-chilled gravestone. It might feel like disease, unclean and clinging, infecting everything it touches. What is your Bloodsong? 'The Beast '(Five Beats) Your Beast has no separate existence from you, of course, but for most vampires it feels like an Other that lives inside the same skin, with its own desires. For vampires who maintain a firm grip on their sanity the Beast might only appear in the dreams of the daysleep or in their mind's eye, a purely psychological projection. Vampires who are a little less bound by objective reality might glimpse their Beast in the corner of their vision, or hear it whispering in their ear. How do you envision your Beast? Is it tied in some way to your deepest hungers? A bloated worm's neck and fat mouth for its bottomless hunger, a Priapic Big Bad Wolf for its depraved lusts? Does it have a voice, wicked in its mammalian seduction or crass in its beserk invective? Could the Beast be something from your mortal life, such as an abusive father dragging his whipping belt or your once-best friend, murdered in frenzy? The Beast within might just be an embodiment of you at your worst: bloody, brutal, wide-eyed, savage in the deepest meaning of the word. Describe your Beast. (Two Beats) Every vampire can evoke three aspects of the Beast by lashing out with her predatory aura: *The Monstrous Beast is the Beast as Destroyer, whose every instinct is to rip asunder and who evokes primative survival instincts in its victims. *The Seductive Beast is the Beast as Tempter, who desires hot abandon, and a temporary escape from reality, inspiring the primal need for instant gratification in its victims. *The Competitive Beast is the Beast as Alpha, who needs to command and control, and evokes submission or proof of dominance from its victims. Describe how each aspect of your Beast manifests in your predatory aura. How does it feel to the victim? (One Beat each) 'Controlling it '(One Beat) At those moments when the Beast rises within you and frenzy threatens, how does it feel to try and stave off those urges? Perhaps you imagine the Beast literally caged, snarling and snapping inside bars of iron or steel. Perhaps you do the mental equivalent of covering your ears with both hands and declaring 'lalala, I'm not listening' to its whispers. Perhaps you feel it only as a rising surge of emotion and combat it with the old tricks of mortality - a deep calming breath, conscious control of your volume and tone, the relaxation of tensed muscles. 'Frenzy '(Three Beats) No two vampires behave exactly the same way when they enter frenzy. The basic personality of the vampire is distilled into its most predatory during the loss of control, eliminating the obstruction of higher mental function, but retaining certain traits. Outgoing, physical Kindred may howl with rage and tear mindlessly at their prey, while more withdrawn intellectual types become chillingly silent, moving with horrifying precision. A vampire's bloodsong strongly influences how they behave at such times, and correspondingly there are clan-related patterns. When Nosferatu frenzy it is a real horror show. For some, the rebellion between flesh and mind can be seen in their jerking stop-motion, their limbs jerked about in unnatural postures and their face impossibly contorted, hissing, spitting, sometimes flushing scarlet or erupting in boils as their inner monster is made manifest. The things that push a vampire into frenzy tend to fall into basic categories: fear, hunger, anger. The Beast's behavior is obviously different depending on the frenzy's trigger and the Beast's desires. Describe a time that you have frenzied. What was it the Beast wanted, and how did it behave? You may give up to three examples, with each addressing a different motivation. (One Beat each) 'Powers '(Three to Six Beats) You can't learn a Discipline without it changing you. Oh, not a deeply as a Coil changes you, granted - more insidiously than that, and on a psychological rather than a physical level. The Nosferatu say you aren't a monster because you inspire fear - you are a monster if you revel in it. For many Nosferatu, Nightmare feels like the truest expression of vampirism. The illusions it creates are always repulsive and horrific, no matter how good the intentions of the Haunt might be, and it's easy to become convinced that you're simply not able to conceive of something that isn't twisted and tainted. Dread can become instinctive, a miasma of discomfort and fear surrounding you when you're unhappy, dragging everyone else down with you - but at least you're not alone, then. Others enjoy terrifying their prey and cowing their opposition, taking a perverse thrill in watching helpless victims turn against their allies or frantically search for a way out of a room that suddenly has no doors or windows. It's a game of cat and mouse, and fear tastes like candy. If you have Nightmare, how has it affected you? (Two Beats) If you don't have Nightmare, what is your opinion of it, and those who use it? (One Beats) Nosferatu often use Obfuscate to live side-by-side with oblivious others - sharing a taxi, sitting down to a meal, holding one-ended conversations the other never hears. It is a pale imitation of real connection, but for many Haunts it's a palliative for their loneliness. Some can become almost addicted to The Familiar Stranger, returning again and again for that moment when someone's eyes light up to see them - thinking they are someone else. Others use it as a kind of torture, making objects disappear to send their owners frantically searching... or making the owner themselves disappear, so that no-one can hear their screams. It can feel like the Obfuscated world is as separate from the real one as Twilight, but the Nosferatu knows how to step between the two. It can also bring a paranoid suspicion, because if you can lurk unseen, so can others. Who is spying on you? How private are your most private moments? ''How can you be sure? ''If you have Obfuscate, how has it affected you? (Two Beats) If you don't have Obfuscate, what is your opinion of it, and those who use it? (One Beat) Vigor adds directly to your strength, a persistent effect requiring no Vitae to activate. The world is fragile around you, made of tissue, and it's easy to hurt people without meaning to. You either learn how to control your strength, or you become a monster. If you have Vigor, how has it affected you? (Two Beats) If you don't have Vigor, what is your opinion of it, and those who use it? (One Beat) Category:Beat Sheets Category:Nosferatu